Animal Personality

I knew it all along, and I’ll bet you did as well: the animals we share our hearts and homes with have personalities, too.

“Lively” Lily, a Jacob Sheep, puts her personality on pause for the camera.

I knew it all along, and I’ll bet you did as well: the animals we share our hearts and homes with have personalities, too.

In fact, according to “They’ve Got Personality,” an article by Cynthia Berger in the February/March 2009 National Wildlife, scientists over the past decade have discovered increasing evidence that creatures from spiders (seriously!) to cranes also possess personalities, or what some researchers call by the more scientific term, “behavior syndromes.”

I think “animality” would be a nice compromise, but – whatever – don’t you just love being right?

My dictionary defines personality as a person’s distinctive character or qualities.

The article’s definition says: “the characteristic pattern of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that make a person unique.”

Berger describes one experiment where scientists tested how individual octopus reacted to being poked, startled, or offered food.

“Each octopus, it turned out, had a unique, and consistent, set of responses – in other words, a personality,” she writes.